raonraonpng: A missionary’s home at the foothills of Mt. Giluwe is a home away from home.

I was not thinking of tourism when building my house, I needed a space to live after retirement. I built my house without knowing that this place will have more space to accommodate visitors. Now my intentions for the house have changed into tourism business and the Piambil Faith Missionary Home is a home away from home for visitors. - Reverend. Wane Ninjipa -

In his late 60s, one of the oldest serving missionary for PNG Bible Church, Revered. Wane Ninjipa has turned his newly built retirement home into a decent home away from home for visitors into Piambil. The village is located near the foothills of Mt. Giluwe the second highest mountain in the Pacific after Mt. Wilhelm and located in Imboggu District.

Reverend Ninjipa’s idea was to renovate and do extension on his old house and started gathering materials since 2013. However, he changed his mind one morning after looking down to the swampy area at the edge of his garden. Armed with a tape measure and a bush knife he went to the swampy area where the current Faith Missionary Home stands and asked his brothers to help clear the area to build his dream house for retirement.

The foundation work was very challenging, recalls Reverend. Ninjipa. They have to dig ditches that were back-filled with stones from the nearby creek to drain out the water and make the surface dry to build the foundation for the house.

With the local expertise and skills coming into play, the area was cleared, water drained out and foundation was suitable to build a house. The six (6) bedroom upstairs with shared bathroom, three rooms downstairs with a master bedroom, bathroom and a modern kitchen have been well-designed to appear like a work of a professional architect. Surprisingly, it was the creative artwork from one of his local tribesmen and a Secondary School Principal.

Rev. Ninjipa is a skillful man himself and when it comes to practical work in his area or elsewhere, he lives for his missionary duties, he has proven the worth of his technical skills. He was taught by the early PNG Bible Church Missionaries at Piambil and Pangia to do painting, build house, farming and other technical works that are useful to his life. The Piambil Faith Missionary Home stands out to reflect the technical skills Rev. Ninjipa learned during his early days with the missionaries.

His heart to serve as missionary never stopped despite the carpenters needed his presence at the construction site. By the time foundation work was in progress, Rev. Ninjipa has been called into duty and was on duty travel to United States in early 2018. With the supports from their four daughters and the only son, their mother turned to his family’s tribe to look for local carpenters when Rev. Ninjipa was away in the United States on missionary duties.

With things working right and in favor of Mrs. Ninjipa and her family, the local carpenters were willing to help her build the proposed house. When the local carpenters saw the plan and the foundation work, they could not believe the design of the building to be very big; recalled Reverend Ninjipa.

‘There was no doubt I will stop or delay the building so I asked the carpenters to follow the design drafted by the local Secondary School Principal with my input;’’ added, Rev. Ninjipa.

The structures of the house were completed between 2018 and late 2019. The house took the desired shape as expected by Rev. Ninjipa himself and it was finally ready to occupy.

Towards the end of 2019, the house was ready for official opening and the name for the house was tossed around among the families, the carpenters, his close friends and relatives. The Piambil Faith Missionary Home was the name selected among the names and it was carved into the grandstand of the car-park with colorful and native flowers to unveil the name during the official opening.

The apparently family home has opened its doors to first guests from the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (PNGTPA) who were conducting tourism awareness and doing product scoping in the Imboggu District following an invitation from the Imboggu Open Member of Parliament and Minister for Inter-governmental Relations – Hon. Pila Ninigi.

It could be a curious story to know why someone like Rev. Ninjipa converted a new and decent family home to allow visitors to stay. It is not by surprise nor by chance for Ninjipa’s to call their family home a home away from home for visitors. With Christian principals instilled in the family and working with people from all walks of life and background around the world, Rev. Ninjipa had met many people and made friends who would one day visit where he lives and Faith Missionary Home at Piambil will service the needs of his visitors away from their homes.

And it is inspiring to know that one of the Rev. Ninjipa’s daughters is an avid Imboggu Basket Promoter and Marketer. She has a tourism background and interests which will complement the interest to open the family home to visitors.

The Piambil Faith Missionary Home is an added value for the family to promote and support tourism in the area. There are greater effects in tourism expected in the area as the marketing and promotion of the tourism products in the area continues.

When PNGTPA officers got the chance to chat with Rev. Ninjipa, the Home Stay Concept was discussed with him and he was interested to ensure that he will provide the best for his visitors to Piambil who will be staying at Faith Missionary Home.

Undeniably, Mt. Giluwe is currently being the center of attraction in the area and Faith Missionary Home is ideally located near the foothills of Mt. Giluwe provides an ease of access to the trekkers. Such facilities are part of the tourism product support amenities and services that are required to support the core tourism products like the Mt. Giluwe and the initiative by Rev. Ninjipa will make way for better returns in tourism for the community and the district.

The Piambil village is not known to many people and the area near the foothills of Mt. Giluwe is still unexplored and home to the New Guinea Singing Dogs as well as unique flora and fauna species. Now the options have been open to affluence the hurdles in trekking Mt. Giluwe with an accommodation midway to the summit.

Within the same fringes, many might never knew that, the oldest Highlands Highway that once connected Southern Highlands (Mendi) and Mt. Hagen via the Tambul District and Piambil is still serviceable by four-wheel drive and whoever takes on the road gets to see the scenic beauty of the area which words will not explain better these days but cameras will surely do.

It is indeed certain that, PNG has some of the wonderful and unexplored places like Piambil with many interesting sites that are still scared and connected to the people through legends and myths like the Wabu cave where the mythical Wenewene lives. The legends are fascinating as evidences with footprints, creeks, trees and plants near the cave have significant signs and marks to confirm the legends.

There is a tendency whereby; we PNG people are still captivated by the interest to travel overseas for holidays when we have not yet explored our own beautiful country’s places or walked and trekked some of the rugged and rough terrains no matched to world heritage listings, unleashing into the freezing cold streams of the mountains and breath the fresh air with the sense of renewal sigh like I did near the foothills of Mt. Giluwe.